Voyages of the Volkswagen Kosmygin, Lunch, Old Town, and Morning Walk Along the Volga...All on the way to Kazan

These are the voyages of the Volkswagen Kosmygin - start date 16-10-2012.  Our mission?  To boldly go where no Childers has gone before. Or a Delaney.

We departed Saratov at 09:00 and drove north.  Interesting things we saw along the way...a Kia Sportage just like Hannah and Brandon!  It wasn't them, though.  There were cars and trucks stopped alongside the highway fixing their own flat tires like my Dad used to do in the fifties...pumping them up with a manual tire pump like we used to do with our bikes. 

The soil is just incredible - rich and dark.  I think I have a picture of a recent plowed field. Also lots of sunflowers still unharvested. Shepherds with sheep and goats and cattle moving alongside the road...lots of dachas (country homes/cottages/cabins.  Going to the dacha on the weekend in the summer is a tradition.  Many older ladies sell produce from them alongside the road everywhere you go.  On this trip we came across a mile or two of little stands selling honey - or just a car with a blanket across the hood and jars of honey - or mead as it is called here.  Twenty miles down the road there were mushrooms for sale - jars and jars of them.  They clean them and then layer them in jars with salt and spices and water.  Couldn't get any pictures of that since we were going too fast.

There was a lady along a stretch of empty road with a little stand and a bun on a stick that she waved to cars passing.  The bun is fried with some meat inside.  I didn't get one.

For lunch we stopped alongside the road and our hosts provided persimmons, grapes, pinenuts, sprouted buckwheat and some honeycomb.  The honeycomb is from his brothers place in the Ural Mountains - in a land faraway.  Luckily, Mom slipped me some bread and cheese once we got into the car.

And let's talk about the Night Bus from Harry Potter...I think the driver is Russian.  It is commonplace to have a truck coming one way on a two lane road and to pass a truck going your way - the drives just straddle the center line and the trucks - hopefully - pull over a little to allow room.  Fun!  No picture of that - I had my eyes closed and was deep in prayer....

We arrived at our destination for the evening. We stayed in the Hotel Venets (I think it means Venice) in the town of ul'yanovsk.  About four hours south of Kazan.  Lenin lived here as a boy and we visited "old town" which included a store (magazine in Russia) and a house he lived in.  Lenin is very popular in Russia and every town we have visited has squares and statues of Lenin. 

The Hotel Venets was probably new in the late sixties or early seventies.  It was kind of old but clean - the view from our 19th story room was nice.

As you can see Mom can't even control herself around statutes of men in uniform!  She does like the sailors and soldiers, doesn't she?  (old family joke which has never been as funny as I think it is!)

Took a walk along the Volga this morning. Nice, foggy morning.  Memorial to WWI veterans.  Flower bed - lots of flower beds around everywhere.  Mornings see older ladies with little brooms sweeping up along the streets and in the squares.

 Off to Kazan!